ch black eyes and wavy hair, the
blackest black, with a polish, and very long eyelashes over dark eyes.
Their faces seem refined and well shaped till they laugh or shout, when
the lizard throat and regular monkey teeth show a little.

From daybreak, after _chota hazri_, the brother-of-the-brush would paint
till eleven, then have breakfast proper, a read and loaf--possibly a
little closing of the eyes to sleep would be more profitable--and paint
again in the afternoon and evening. And if he didn't use all his stock
of paints, water-colour, and oils before he left I'd be surprised. A
great attraction would be the absence of distractions such as you'd have
in larger centres, and very important, is the pleasant air here.

Arsikerry, a little further north the line, is better in this last
respect, but I was not through the bazaar there, merely saw the place
was fairly good for snipe, as previously remarked in these notes.

We put in here--Channapatna--yesterday afternoon. The sun was glowing on
the rain-trees that shelter the station, and we selected a spot shaded
by their foliage on a siding midst "beechen green and shadows
numberless." In a minute the servants were out on the sand track blowing
up the fire for tea, which R. had well-earned, as he'd been trollying
since daybreak looking at bridges, viaducts, station-buildings, and the
line, generally and practically, down to the stationmasters' gardens.
Tiring work both for eyes and mind, for whilst trollying you are quite
unsheltered, so the heat in the cuttings, and the glare from the quartz
and lines, has to be felt and seen to be believed, and of course the
track is the thing that has to be constantly regarded, so blue
spectacles are absolutely necessary, but only a partial protection to
the eyesight. No wonder R. takes such care to plant trees round
stations and to encourage the stationmasters to grow flowers! Apropos,
there were once prizes given to stationmasters with the best gardens.
Water being a consideration, the prize was allotted to the best garden
in _inverse ratio_ to its distance from a water supply. The
stationmaster who got first prize was five miles from a supply, and his
exhibit was one, almost dead flower, in a pot of dried earth; so that
"system" was shelved.

We walked round the village after tea and came to the above conclusions,
that may possibly be useful to some brother artist. About the passage
out, just one word more; I met a colonel here wh